Anonymity

There is a certain strangeness in anonymity.  Sitting alone at the gray tables with the attached magenta circular seats in the school's cafeteria I feel anonymous.  Anonymous and different.

The parents laugh and speak with ease.  I listen to them talk about summer vacations and plans for the winter break.  I hear them compliment each other's wives and remark on how hard they work. 

I'm not part of this parish, part of this community, and I wear my separateness from the other parents like a neon scarf.

I'm not the head of a normal household.  Most of the school officials refer to it as a "broken home."  In fact, as a woman, I shouldn't technically be head of a household.  The other women have had houses built or bought for them, husbands willing to praise, to please, to help, and that's not been my experience, obviously.  Some manipulate in order to control their husbands' actions, and it seems to work for them.  I'm not a witholder or manipulator, as I'd rather take what is given freely than force a situation.

I want to be loved, though.  I want to be loved for me--for all of me:  for the good, the bad, and the mediocrity present in my core. 

Some nights, like last night, I wonder why my life is so different. The majority of my acquaintances who have  divorced have remarried within two years.  I was still healing two years out, and the thought of becoming involved with someone else, only to have my heart shattered again, was frightening.

Perhaps I've missed my timeline, as being separated / divorced for nine years I've developed coping methods and have become set in my ways.  I don't wait for help--I never receive it anyway--and I've lost the desire to reach out and to reveal myself to others.

Disappointing experience after disappointing experience makes me believe that there is something seriously defective with me, and no quantity of people sending me the poem about apples on the high tree branches soothes me.